Kweilin to Kunming
My memory of the next hour or two is rather vague, but by some means I found myself in a large army truck on my way to one of the airstrips. The way was rough and rugged, and the vehicle bounced and thumped over deep pot-holes until my bones seemed to strike directly on the hard boards at every jolt. What flesh remained had entirely lost any properties of shock absorption that it might have once possessed, and I was glad when we pulled up alongside a C.47 transport plane bearing the roundels of the RAF. It was a long time since I had seen those markings, and it was good to know that they were again penetrating those Eastern skies, from which they had so ignominiously been shot during the black days of 1942.
There was a great deal of chatter and excitement from a British consular official who was certain that the plane was badly trimmed and overloaded. In his panic he made himself very hot and red in the face by moving luggage about the plane, and he then made himself further obnoxious by attempting to have some passengers left behind in order that he, and a ridiculous quantity of his luggage, should be assured of a safe passage. The captain of the plane must have been strongly tempted to throw the man and his luggage out, for those were my own feelings. To see an official making a public demonstration of sheer fright was not a pleasant experience.
With twenty passengers and a full load of luggage on board we were ready to go at 4 p.m., and the big plane lifted gracefully over the mountains surrounding the field. That was my first experience of flying in anything larger than a little two-seater, open cockpit “Avro”, and I was greatly impressed with the steadiness and feeling of solid security in this big aircraft. We climbed steadily to twelve thousand feet and sailed over a vast area of steep barren ridges, over hundreds of miles of country almost entirely devoid of population. Rivers and streams ran in gorges too steep for any cultivation, and villages of any size were conspicuous by their absence. Occasional tracks twisting along the mountainsides were the only evidence that men did live in this great inhospitable expanse of primitive terrain. Frequently the earth was obscured by layers of cloud, but as we went west, so we saw the streams change colour. Clear water gave place to rivers heavily charged with the deep red silt that characterises the rivers of Yunnan, and which is responsible for the name of the Red River which flows south to the Gulf of Tongking.
The sun went down to leave a landscape plunged in night below, while colour still tinged the topmost clouds. Pinpoints of light came into view, and after making several circuits over Kunming we landed on a sodden strip to find light rain still falling. Great pools of water were lying everywhere, and jeeps and trucks were dashing past, spraying water in all directions. Planes were roaring overhead, landing at frequent intervals, and there was a great confusion of noise and movement. My main impressions were of tremendous activity, of mud, of wet, and a feeling that it must have been raining for a long time. We emptied out of the plane, and there were wives and friends to meet some of the passengers. It occurred to me that these were the first white women I had been close to for two and a half years, and I looked again with renewed interest, but without being greatly impressed.
Someone put me in a jeep and drove for what seemed to be interminable miles around the airport, to the Royal Air Force Mess. To my disordered senses the coloured lights and the atmosphere of comfort within those walls seemed to be something from the pages of fiction. I was introduced to the commanding officer, Wing-Commander Lord Waleron, who told me that the Mess was unusually crowded because flying schedules had been disrupted by the weather. Normally there would be only three or four staying there, but that night there were more than a dozen. By the time dinner was over I was too exhausted to absorb any further impressions, and my conversation must have been rather wild, for next morning some of my friends were discussing the previous night with no little amusement. They said that my eyes on occasion had not encouraged argument.
Situated at an elevation of 6,000 feet Kunming has a very good climate, and I had thoroughly enjoyed the experience of needing a blanket to keep me warm during the night. The Mess was intended for the use of air crews staying overnight in Kunming, and as it was pressed for room arrangements were made for me to stay at the Mess of the British Military Mission in China.
Wing Commander John, RAF, Air Attaché in Kunming, gave me a warm rug and a pair of stockings, for he said I would need them for the flight over the “Hump” into India. My wardrobe was gradually increasing, though I was still not embarrassed with more luggage than could be lifted quite comfortably in one hand.
Lord Waleron arrived with a Jeep about 10.30 a.m., and we drove again round that enormous airfield, the first big one I had been able to inspect. There were literally hundreds of fighters, bombers and transports lined up in orderly ranks or strewn about in all stages of repair. That was the terminal of the freight route from India, the end of the most dangerous freight route ever flown, the seething, bustling outcome of one of the daring and imaginative projects of the war.
Right there before my eyes was the evidence of what had been achieved. Vast piles of supplies, great dumps of bombs, vehicles in amazing numbers from jeeps to huge six-wheeled trailers, all had been flown over the implacable mountains, brought by the one highway still uncontrolled by the enemy, the highway of the sky. All day and all night too the big transports were roaring round above the field, going out light to India, coming in loaded to capacity. Sometimes a plane was unable to reach the requisite eighteen thousand feet for safe flying, and then another transport would leave its scattered remains on some jagged mountain peak, there to be a constant reminder of the dangers of that bold adventure.
After a brief interrogation by an “intelligence” officer I was driven to my new home, a large house on the bank of a river about one hundred feet wide, which flowed into the Tien Hu Lake. A room on the first floor overlooking the river was assigned to me, and that really looked like luxury. It was a large room with bathroom attached, nicely furnished with furniture made in France, and it seemed wonderfully quiet. No one shared it with me, and for the first time in what seemed a lifetime I had somewhere to go on my own, somewhere to retreat to when I wanted peace and solitude. And how I wanted solitude. Always, when living in the crowded conditions of the prison camp, my vision of heaven had been a soundproof room with a door six inches thick, through which no unwanted guest, no grating voice could penetrate. The quiet seclusion of this room looked like the realisation of a dream, and I felt that it did not matter then if my whereabouts should be forgotten for a time. Besides a very comfortable bed with a tight wire wove, there was a large writing-table in my room, another of the things that I had missed very much while in camp, and although I was not feeling in the mood to write anything, it gave me great pleasure just to know that it was there and at my disposal when required.
Greta Eardley, sister of one of the men I had known in camp, came to see me one evening to learn the latest tidings of her brother. We decided to send cards back to the camp, including hidden information of my safe arrival in Kunming, and although they were addressed to various people in camp in the hope that one might go through, none was received there. Whether the Japanese picked up the reference, or whether they stopped all mail from China I do not know, but the attempt was made because not long before my escape Henry Eardley had received a letter from Kunming only six weeks after it had been posted. Compared with the usual twelve to eighteen months which our letters took, that had seemed like a telegram.
The Kunming office of the British Military Mission was headed by Lieutenant-Colonel Clark, an old “China Hand” who spoke the language fluently, and he invited me to dine with him one evening. Possibly I had premonitions of trouble to follow, for it was not an enjoyable meal, and I excused myself early. Within an hour a severe attack of diarrhoea developed, an attack which lasted for two days, with intermittent spells of vomiting to increase my discomfort. My only recourse was to stop eating altogether until this condition cleared up, and it was particularly annoying to have to look at a beautiful dish of peaches and pears that the cook had bought for me, without being able to sample them. Fruit had been one of the things we had missed more than anything else, and it was most tantalising to have the room filled with the scent of it without being able to satisfy my craving.
First impressions of Kunming were decidedly unfavourable, for there had been a lot of rain, streets were inches deep in black filthy mud, streets of houses were dilapidated and decaying, the majority of the people were dirty and poverty stricken, while many were diseased and stamped with vice. Those were first impressions, generally true for parts of the old city, but they were considerably modified on better acquaintance.
Thieving flourished on a grand scale, shops were stacked with goods of US Army origin, and it was said that complete jeeps could be bought by visiting two or three vendors of spare parts. Just before my arrival at the Mission, thieves had climbed into the compound from the river, jacked up a new Jeep, and had gone off with the four wheels. Chinese currency was in the throes of almost total collapse, and it was difficult to arrive at the true value of anything. Various exchange rates were operating, the lowest official rate being CNC$12 to the rupee, the highest black-market rate being CNC$120 to the rupee. Those were the days when Chinese on fixed salaries in official positions were almost starving, while coolies and other casual workers could be seen walking the streets with great blocks of notes under their arms, packs of notes six inches thick. Even at that no great amount of money might be represented, for there was a bewildering variety of notes issued in China, and when it came to CNC$10 bills, the notes themselves were worth much more than their face value. For instance, one sheet of writing-paper or one envelope cost $10, while a tin of shoe polish was $600. No wonder it was a common sight to see men strolling along with armfuls of banknotes.
The weather was delightfully cool, but it was not pleasant for walking as rain still continued intermittently and thunder was rumbling about the surrounding hills. Major West, in charge of the British Military Mission Store, took me in hand and fitted me out with two sets of underwear, another khaki shirt, a pair of shorts and a woollen jersey. This last I thought might be useful later when flying, and I did not realise at the time that in a few days I would be very glad to be wearing not only one jersey, but two.
Heavy rain continued for several days, and the river ran swiftly, thick with brown mud. The water overlapped the bank in places, and some of the old-timers said that they had never before seen it so high. During that time I was feeling too ill to want to go out, and since there was always plenty of interest in the life on the river, and on the roadway opposite, the weather did not worry me.
Transient officers were continually dropping in for meals, and I was rapidly feeling the pulse of their cumulative opinions of this enterprise in China. International policies decreed that Chiang Kai Shek must be supported in his alleged resistance to the Japanese, but there was not one honest foreigner in China who did not subscribe to the view that the Allies were backing a foredoomed failure. Never were indictments more bitter than those which came from the lips of those officers who had been toiling in danger and discomfort in the forward zones of China, where all their efforts ended in complete and utter frustration. And it was not only from the forward areas that complaints were heard. Right there in Kunming many men were wondering why so many gallant lives were being sacrificed in flying supplies and sinews of war over the “Hump”, supplies which never by any chance were ever used against the Japanese.
Where did they go? Nobody could say for certain, but many were the views expressed. “They were delivered to the Chinese Army. They disappeared into the country; into the mountains; into Chiang’s network of private stores. They were stacked in reserve dumps for use in the civil war to follow World War II.” Undoubtedly much material was sold to the Japanese.
The Chinese Army was run on lines that could not be tolerated in any Western country. Corruption was rife throughout its higher ranks, with the result that, in spite of their miserable pay, its officers waxed fat and wealthy while its soldiers starved to death in rags.
Where did all those supplies go to? Why were the fine airfields, constructed so laboriously in Kwangtung and Kwangsi provinces, abandoned to the enemy without a fight? The final Japanese offensive through South China in 1944 was so weak, had so pitifully little behind it, that one determined defensive action would have killed it dead in its tracks. But there was no defensive action. The streets of Kweilin were a scene of feverish activity, with troops building sunken pillboxes at every intersection and at every commanding position. A man who had been twenty years in China looked at the scene, and said with quiet introspection: “I wonder! I have seen exactly the same preparations made in a dozen cities in China, and not one of those cities was ever defended.” He had no need to wonder, for Kweilin followed the normal pattern, and Japanese troops marched through the town. Every officer and man in China knew that his work, his best efforts, were utterly useless and futile, and it was no wonder that a bitterness of spirit was general among the forces there.
The American and British aid could have had a tremendous effect had it been co-ordinated and driven into a front-line striking force, but long before it ever reached the forward areas it had been dissipated into the private pockets of officialdom. That may sound exaggerated and untrue to those who heard only the clamourings of the official Press, but I was writing those lines at a later date in Shanghai, and here is my feeling at that time.
Just now, it is July 1946, the newspapers are full of nonsense about the war raging with the Communists. Hair-raising accounts appear daily of the imminence of attacks on Nanking and Shanghai. “The ‘Battle’ for Shanghai is now On”, “Reds Closing in on Yangtze Triangle”, are typical of the headings in the newspapers. Foreign correspondents are confined to Nanking as “it is much too dangerous near the forward areas”. Can one imagine it? Too dangerous for men who stormed ashore on the shell-torn beaches of Iwo Jima and Okinawa? Too dangerous to go into an area where only occasional shots are fired? No; the reason why journalists are not wanted is that the actual scenes are not for publication. There is no doubt about the Communist successes, but they are not achieved through the pictured scenes of battle. It is my firm belief that in most of the battles which end in Nationalist defeat, the contending generals spill more ink than human blood in their intricate conniving.
Here, right now in Shanghai, is an exact replica of the sense of utter frustration that depressed the armed forces in 1944. Now it is the staff of UNRRA confronted with exactly similar conditions. They see huge quantities of relief goods piling into the ports of China, and immediately the rot sets in. Delays, difficulties, deliberate misappropriations, inefficiency, lack of control, private greed, official greed, all take their toll of supplies that were sent to save the starving, to rehabilitate the broken industries. Here the starving have starved through centuries, and they can continue to starve. Here the broken industries have no money to buy equipment, so it will go to those who can pay. Why? The cry is that China is bankrupt, yet in a speech made by Mayor Wu last week he apologised for the fact that there were so many millionaires in Shanghai – a strange state of affairs in a bankrupt nation. Just as the war supplies dissipated in China, so are the UNRRA supplies going, but I digress too far; this story concerns my escape from China, not my third return.
My immediate impressions of the people moving through Kunming were accented by comparison with those among whom I had lived in the provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi. There the climate was warm and friendly, the soil rich and productive, the people plump, round-faced, smiling, and pleasant to be among. Here many of the trains of ponies were tended by mountain folk, people with Tibetan features, dirty, faces pinched and mean with hard living in bitter climates and with struggling to extract a meagre subsistence from the barren mountain soil. Their minds and morals were formulated by the lives they led, and in their eyes were the seeds of murder, of thieving, of distrust, and of hate. Yunnan is a bad province for opium, and it could be bought at many street stalls packaged in cigarettes. These were bought by many depraved types, and when one saw the men who tended the passing caravans it was not surprising to hear that the mountain trails were dangerous for lonely travellers at night.
There were hundreds of tiny China ponies in the streets, really miniature steeds that barely reached to my elbow. They were harnessed into carts, or they had saddles and equipment to hold every variety of goods that could be done up in packages small enough for them to carry. One special saddle had a platform slung on either side on which piles of bricks were stacked, while another had harness for holding a large tub on either side, tubs in which bean curd was carried. Long convoys of these animals were continually passing, they being the only available transport that was able to cope with the steep and narrow mountain tracks. Most were fat and well cared for, but occasionally one saw some in pitiful condition – thin, badly chafed and obviously neglected by an ignorant or vicious owner. Continued use of such animals should not have been tolerated, but neither should human wreckage have been allowed to litter the streets as it did in every Chinese city.
One did not need to be sensitive to live in any degree of comfort in China, for the diseased beggars were nauseating. On every street those wretches grovelled, their bodies covered with hideous running ulcers, or with horrible deformities. The worst features of every ailment were invariably bared to public view and accentuated as much as possible by accumulations of filth, all done with an eye to attracting the maximum sympathy from the passer-by.
A favourite trick of the beggar with deformed legs, either real or assumed, was to drag himself about the streets through all the wettest and worst filth he could find, until he became just an utterly revolting sight, too disgusting even to attract sympathy.
Traffic in Kunming at that time was completely chaotic, with little or no control being exercised. Only at the worst intersections were American Military Police in charge. This hidden city of China had been designed for rickshaws and other wheeled vehicles that could be drawn by hand, and the advent of motor-buses, trucks, jeeps, petrol wagons and cars was playing havoc with the narrow ways. The mere pedestrian got along as best he could, threading through the maze of vehicles which had no respect at all for the sidewalks. Any stroll in town was bound to yield its quota of surprises, for the streets were blocked in a great variety of ways. At one point the crowd of walkers would be dodging out round some obstruction, and on reaching the spot you would find a small child, intent and unconcerned, doing its business with utter disregard of the passing traffic. At another place a pony munched a contemplative meal, while the crowd milled out among the vehicles to get by. No one questioned the right of the pony, or of the driver who sat alongside – they must have their food, it was time to eat, so what better place could be found than the one in which they happened to be? No! people might be killed in trying to pass, but no one would think of placing any blame on the pony.
Parked buses and trucks caused great confusion, for even when hard against a building they frequently blocked more than half the traffic way, and the drivers would disappear with no regard at all for the trouble they were causing.
Those were problems which came into being with the arrival of the sky train from India. Kunming was in the throes of a revolution that rocked it to its foundations, and in spite of, or because of, the fantastic prices prevailing, millionaires in China dollars were springing up like mushrooms. These people were putting their unstable cash into solid property as fast as they could, and whole new suburbs of houses were springing up, houses built of blue-grey bricks that looked quite attractive from the outside, but which by our standards were hopelessly deficient in plumbing. Then there was almost a whole street of substantial modern business premises and banks, all constructed during the past year, while more building was in progress.
One of those new structures gave me an interesting insight into Chinese improvisation. Excavations eight or ten feet deep had been flooded by recent heavy rains, and work was held up owing to lack of any pumping gear. So the contractors had gone to work and built a wooden contraption which shifted the water at surprising speed. An endless belt, fitted at frequent intervals with a board attached at right angles, ran up a sloping wooden trough, and as this belt was turned by teams of several workmen, each board pushed its quota of water up the trough. These water troughs were in general use throughout the land for irrigating rice fields. Of course the boards could fit only loosely and much efficiency was lost through leakage, so that four feet was the maximum lift possible at one time. This trouble was overcome by building a reservoir at that height, from which a second belt carried the water up to road level, and with both belts turning at their best speed a considerable stream poured out into the gutter. Next day the foundations were clear, and builders were at work.
Yunnan has a splendid climate for fruit growing, and all along the streets were vendors with their little stalls. Peaches were just going out of season, but pears and persimmons were excellent, and very plentiful. The weather was growing colder, and on several days I was wearing two pullovers. Chestnuts appeared at wayside stalls, and, cooked in burnt sugar in big iron kongs, they were very good. Every day I bought a bag to take home, but usually, if my walk had taken me some distance, there would be very few left by the time I arrived.
My health was improving and walks were taking me farther afield, so that I explored streets of coppersmiths, of vendors of porcelain, and of other goods of Chinese craftsmanship. There were some very beautiful vases and teapots that attracted me until their price was disclosed, when my interest waned suddenly. A pair of small vases was offered for five thousand Chinese dollars, while other articles bore similar crazy prices, ranging up to eighty thousand dollars. There was no Navy Office from which I could draw any pay, so the only money I had was that advanced by the British Army Aid Group, which was just enough to cover ordinary expenses incidental to living. My mind could not readily adjust itself to those prices which all seemed to have at least three noughts too many attached to them, especially as conversion to sterling required so much juggling with various exchange rates. The best typically Chinese work was represented by bronze figures of most hideous and ferocious mien – knights of old, and warriors of undoubted strength and savagery. There were really splendid examples of that kind of work, but they were much too heavy to tempt me to buy.
An interesting walk was that along the top of the old city wall from which one looked across wide fields of rice, stretching as far as the eye could see, to far distant hills. Those fields appeared to be as smooth and level as close mown lawns, but closer inspection showed the rice to be a full three feet in height, and carrying a very heavy head of grain. That was by far the best crop I had seen anywhere, and it was easy to see why this wide valley was famous for its fertility.
One of the ancient city gates presented a fine example of Chinese architecture, its ridges and curved eaves ornamented with a great variety of porcelain animals and fish. Then there was a long street of most noisome hovels, its old buildings falling to ruin, its yards and alleys cluttered with filth, its occupants dirty and slovenly in the extreme. The broad top of the wall would have made a lovely scenic walk had it been laid out with paths and gardens, lawns and seats to attract those with leisure to enjoy the undoubted beauty of the surrounding view, but here much of the pleasure was lost through the visitor having to pick his way through dumps of refuse and of human filth.
The British Military Mission Mess was situated close to the northern boundary of the city, so that in a few minutes one could walk out over a bridge and be right in the country. There were miles of paddy fields, with closely packed villages dotted here and there, the dark red walls of the houses in pleasing contrast with vivid green fields. Tall handsome trees lined river banks and often ornamented the villages, big dark clumps standing up like islands in the green level sea. I strolled through the villages, and on looking into one of the houses was greatly surprised to see a blindfolded pony trudging round and round grinding corn. In some of the larger rooms two ponies were at work, and on seeing them in what appeared to be purely residential houses, I wondered what other work might be going on inside those red walls, so closely packed for mutual protection.
At the approaches to most villages pillboxes had been constructed, and troops were in evidence everywhere. No one took any notice of me, except innumerable small boys who constantly shouted their greeting of “Ding-How” as they gave the “thumbs up” sign.
One day, when I was out walking with Mr. Pouncey, of the China Maritime Customs, we watched a little crude rescue work in progress. A crowd lined the banks of a river and there, in a sampan, the body of a man hung like a wet sack over a pole resting across the gunwales. Pouncey spoke Chinese fluently, and when he asked an onlooker what had happened we were informed that the man had just been dragged from the river. To all appearances he was quite dead, but later, when we were returning from our walk, the “body” was sitting up. Close by the track its clothes were drying by a fire of rice straw, while friends prepared a meal. As the river was little more than twenty feet wide at the place where he was fished out, it is more than likely that he was an attempted suicide, and no doubt he would be greatly annoyed at returning to his erstwhile unhappy state, after suffering all the major discomforts of dying. Some people have no luck at all.
One road in Kunming was lined with an avenue of magnificent blue gum trees, massive patriarchs from sixty to seventy feet in height, a gift from some early visitor who brought a reminder of his native land to keep him company in this, at that time, remote corner of the earth. Those gum trees were in full bloom, their soft yellow flowers making a most attractive display. It was a pity that their beauty was marred by hundreds of big black crows which delighted to roost in the spreading branches, where they made a deafening noise with their raucous caws in the mornings and evenings, the while they spattered the roadway with their droppings.
At one time a plague of hairy caterpillars invaded the house, unpleasant little brutes that persisted in crawling to some place where they would be squashed with the maximum of mess, and which had a nasty habit of stinging if one tried to pick them up. But caterpillars were not the only pests to worry us, for enormous rats made a happy hunting-ground of my room. Those unwelcome visitors became so acquisitive that at one stage it seemed that they might even walk off with me. My first loss was two cakes of soap, a commodity extremely difficult to come by, and then large quantities of fruit began to go. Secure places were gradually found for edibles, and then other belongings began to disappear. A towel was only just retrieved as the last few inches were disappearing through a hole in the wall, while a pair of stockings, apparently regarded as palatable, was left to me as a small pile of frayed wool on the floor. It was no easy matter to remember to lock everything away, but having exercised exceptional care one night I was greatly annoyed to wake in the early hours and hear a great racket going on in the drawer of my writing-table. Unable to find anything better to do, a large rat had managed to squeeze in over the back of the drawer, and it was having a great time tearing up all my letters and papers. Mr. Rat got a mighty whack from a stick as he leapt from the drawer, and although he was still agile enough to escape, the blow should have convinced him that paper tearing was not a profitable pastime.
Human thieves also went to work on the house, but this time I was not the victim. One wall was against the street, and on that side all windows were heavily barred. That precaution was merely a challenge and, by means of a long pole with a hook on the end of it, they had dragged through a broken window all the bedding and everything else that could be squeezed between the bars.
A week in Kunming passed rather slowly, for I was much too unsettled to relax and enjoy a life of lazy ease, and I seemed to be forgotten. Major Ford had gone to Ishan, and with the Japanese rapidly advancing on that area, both from Wuchow and from Kweilin, anything could be happening there. A black depression settled over me at times, but the constant flow of visitors from all parts of India and China kept me interested with their varied and dramatic adventures.
Nature had been lavish in her treatment of Kunming, for besides the rice and fruit, vegetables grew in great abundance. There were ordinary potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbages, carrots and many varieties of beans and marrows, so that the food was an endless source of delight. The cook was an artist at his work and he turned out most attractive cakes and pastries. I made prodigious inroads on those delicacies, and my uncontrollable appetite was shameful. Still, the cook had no cause to growl, for the more he bought the more he made in “squeeze”. It was said that although his official salary was CN$ 7,500 a month, he was really collecting between CN$ 45,000 and CN$ 50,000. That was how China functioned.
On the 19th of September Colonel Hooper, of the British Army Aid Group, arrived from India, and he said that arrangements had been made for my reception there. If hospital treatment were needed I would remain in Calcutta, but if only convalescence were required I would fly to Simla. He painted a most attractive picture of that health resort in the foothills of the Himalayas, where he said there would be beautiful girls to attend my every want. Such convalescence certainly sounded alluring, but I was growing hopeful of spending my leave in Auckland, and compared with that prospect any other appeared as a dying ember beside the sun.
Possibly as an indication of my improving health fleas began to invade my bed in large numbers, and while they bit me to their hearts’ content, I could never catch one. There were no sheets to be had, and I fancy the fleas just poked their heads through the blankets while they were biting, so that they could make a precipitate retreat at the first movement.
Little highlights stand out in those days at Kunming, one of them being a dinner to which Colonel Hooper and I were invited by Miss Greta Eardley. On a lavishly stocked table pride of place was taken by a dish of perfectly browned roast pigeons, and I could not help thinking what her poor brother could have done to those. Henry Eardley was a young and very strong man with an enormous appetite, and while looking at all that luscious food it made me laugh to think of him lining up in the prison camp for his miserable portion of rice, probably with broken glass in it, and his small mug of green slime. This latter concoction was alleged, by the Messing Committee of which I was once a member, to be vegetable stew; but none of the names by which it was known in camp sounded anything like “stew”.
Frequently people with whom I dined remarked that they could not eat big meals when they thought of the thousands of our people starving in the camps, but I am afraid no such qualms ever blunted my own appetite. Had it been humanly possible to deliver food to the camps it would have been delivered, but as it could not be done there was no point in feeling miserable over one’s own good fortune, and thoughts of friends in camp brought mainly amusing comparisons to mind. I knew that they would have reacted similarly had our positions been reversed, and many of us have laughed about it since.
Friday, the 22nd of September, was a sunny day with a beautifully clear blue sky, and the “Air raid expected” signal was hoisted during the morning. A squadron of American fighters roared up into the realms of space, and thereafter all was quiet, no enemy planes appearing. Kunming had been heavily bombed a year previously, but no attack had been made for a long time and I sincerely hoped that my stay would be completed in peace. It was delightfully restful walking through the fresh green countryside on those bright days, and I felt that the crashing, rending madness of bombing would be too much to bear.
My interrogator was still missing, so I decided to settle down and write as comprehensive a report as possible. Any points which needed elaboration could be dealt with after his arrival, and as there was still a long wait to be endured, that idea was a good one. Neither my eyes nor my brain seemed capable of sustained concentration for more than two or three hours each day, and study of the diaries proved to be a very exhausting business.
Besides the basic plan of flying me to India once my services were no longer required in China, there were a number of local proposals advanced. Always hovering in the background was the danger that someone would decide to send me back to Ishan by one of the truck convoys, an idea which various visiting officers had put forward, but it was one which I had always strenuously opposed. If information was wanted it could be had in Kunming just as well as in Ishan, and there were limits to my endurance. Death would have been infinitely preferable at that time to two or three weeks of bumping and crashing over those shocking Chinese roads, and having already crossed China once, it was not in my scheme of the future to go thumping back over two-thirds of it again. Such little adventures might possibly be regarded with interest by those in the prime of life, but it was not hard for me to believe that my prime had occurred at some time prior to 1942. I was determined that any further hardships would be undertaken from dire necessity, and not from love of them.
A more attractive proposition was that my remaining time in Kunming should be spent at a quiet rest-camp at Shi Shan, some twelve miles distant on the shore of Lake Tien Hu, and that plan broke down only because the place was temporarily closed. So I remained at the Military Mission Headquarters, enjoyed strolling about in the country or in the town, and let others do the worrying.
On a Saturday evening a party of us went to see a film, Casablanca, my first for almost three years. Could that be a modern picture? Was that the film that was acclaimed a great success? As the story unfolded, my senses became more and more numbed, and I left the theatre feeling bewildered and insulted. What had happened? I used to enjoy seeing a film occasionally, but here was something so blatantly artificial, so childish in its pantomime, so seemingly antiquated in its technique that I could not believe that the silver screen could be offering such entertainment to normal, presumably intelligent adults. There were long sequences of close-ups that one associated with films of twenty years ago, and there was such a spate of ridiculously unreal adventure that it could be conceived only in the mind of a Hollywood producer, so immersed in his own realms of fancy that he had lost all contact with the world. My strongest feeling was one of anger that that was the plane on which my intelligence was judged to be, and it was a long time before my film mentality degenerated sufficiently to enable me to enjoy a programme without an occasional surge of anger at the fare provided.
In Kunming there was always something unusual happening to hold the attention of a Westerner, and I was greatly amused by the building of a two-storey house across the street from our Mess. On Sunday workmen arrived to erect uprights and rafters. Monday morning saw a wooden roof slapped on, temporary flooring laid upstairs, and a few weather-boards nailed on the upper walls. In the afternoon the furniture was hauled up: beds, a side-board, chairs and cupboards. I have no idea how long it took to complete the house, but the family moved in and slept there that night. It struck me rather forcefully that our own housing problems would soon vanish if we could move in the day after a house was started.
On the 30th of September my luxurious comfort came to an end, for the British Military Mission moved its quarters to a smaller house. There I shared a room with another officer, while a third bed was available for any chance visitor. The kitchen was not yet in operation, so on that first day we had lunch at the “Hotel de Commerce”. The bill came to CNC$600 each, a sum which at the official rate of exchange represented £7, 10s. at the semi-official rate 15s., and at the best black-market rate 11s. 3d. In claiming expenses for an official visit a nice point would arise as to what rate of exchange one would be entitled to use.
Two days later Ford arrived, and life took on a more definite aspect once more. When the reports were completed he was to escort me to India, and his presence lent point and direction to my writing. With Ford was Captain Henry Chan, a Chinese member of the British Army Aid Group who had been working behind the Japanese lines. We had a most interesting stroll together one evening, and in discussing this most recent inrush of foreigners to China, he expressed annoyance at the attitude of the majority of Americans. His chief complaint was that they treated Chinese of every strata of society on the same level as the coolies, and there was no doubt that his censure had much to justify it. Not only Americans came in for criticism, for he painted a vivid picture of the faults of many of the British in China; but he was generous enough to agree that his complaint was directed more against individuals than against the race. It was true that one frequently saw “officers and gentlemen” drinking themselves into a state of alcoholic stupor, and the Chinese, who are an abstemious people, looked on with anything but favour at the behaviour attendant upon such gross over indulgence. Henry was an educated thinker, and it was stimulating to hear the frank opinions of one of those people with whom we were attempting to be allies. Had there been more of his type among the ruling clique a different history would have been written for China, but it was a sad fact that he represented an infinitesimal minority. Personal interest and intrigue among its officials held the entire nation to ransom.
At that time no one in China had any illusions about the real state of affairs; it was the outside world, relying on Official news releases, that was given an entirely false conception of the situation. The tragedy for China, and for us, was that the Communist faction was the only one which had sufficient organisation to be a threat to Chiang’s regime, and it was inevitable that America should support the established Government, in spite of all its deficiencies. Nothing as corrupt as that Government could survive, no matter how much external aid was applied. All that the big aid programmes achieved in China was a slowing down of the rate at which the country sank into the morass of internal dissension, and inevitably into the hands of the Communists.
But I digress too far again. A bottle of mulberry wine in a shop window attracted me one day, and feeling somewhat affluent at the time I bought it for CNC$600. That was the nicest drink I had had since my escape, for most of the locally made liquor available was concocted from alcohol distilled for motor fuel. There were many different labels on the bottles, such as gin, orange brandy, cherry brandy, whisky and various wines, while the contents were of varying hues. The colours and the names were snares and delusions, for underlying them all was the harsh flavour of raw alcohol. It was terrible stuff, and people who had over indulged staggered forth next day as if they had been through the Valley of the Damned.
News came on the 9th of October that arrangements had been made for me to go to Calcutta, Colombo and thence to New Zealand, so I was anxious to be off. My reports were almost completed, and a passage to Calcutta was booked on a plane leaving on the 17th of October. In the meantime, one Captain Jones and I explored the city and its environs, and frequently we would discover a street devoted entirely to one particular trade. In spite of the numbers of ponies everywhere we had not seen any harness shops, until one morning we came to a street where harness of every kind could be bought. Everything was made there, from the thread with which the leather was sewn, to the metal buckles and the wooden frames of the saddles.
The old city was most interesting, but it was only by peeping through open gates or doorways that much of its beauty could be seen. In courtyards behind high walls there were handsome examples of Chinese architecture, houses with wide curving roofs highly ornamented under the eaves, while along the ridges there were porcelain figures of dragons, fish animals, birds and people. There is no more beautiful roof in the world than the Chinese roof of green glazed tiles with its curved caves, and my “Ideal Home” would have such a roof.